Thread by @pmdfoster

A quick thought or two on David Frost speech in Lisbon, which you can read here -- it's not that long.

He says the NI Protocol is broken, is hurting Good Friday peace deal etc....but neglects to say that this was clear UK Govt choice/1

gov.uk/government/spe…

He says a "hard #Brexit" was "essential" to free the UK -- this is true -- but it was also done at the expense of Northern Ireland. It was a choice - @theresa_may chose a different path/2

@theresa_may So it's more truthful to say -- to quote Kate Hoey, a Brexiter from Northern Ireland, that the province "sacrificed" for a clean-break Brexit. /3

irishnews.com/news/northerni…

@theresa_may It is also worth recalling that even AFTER sacrificing Northern Ireland, @BorisJohnson and David Frost then rejected pleas by Unionists to mitigate this by doing a veterinary deal with the EU, as Edwin Poots requested in a letter in Summer 2020 /4

ft.com/content/5a4c0c…

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson So whilst Frost might be correct that the EU failed to make it work when it had the chance (these easements coming tomorrow should have been the starting point in Dec 2020) the situation in NI is a function of the UK govt's deliberate choice /5

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson It now wants, to coin a well-worn phrase, to "have it's cake and eat it" by going back to relitigate how the UK can leave NI in the customs territory of the EU (de facto) to avoid a border...while having no border to speak of GB-NI/6

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson Indeed Frost explicitly says (as he requests the EU take a super-special approach to the GB-NI Irish Sea border) that the UK will not have EU-level border checks on its own borders!! /7

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson This is UK's perfect right, but bit cheeky -- to put it mildly -- to think that doesn't register in Brussels, on the day we're asking for a super light-touch border in what is effectively a back door into EU single market /8

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson The rest of it was to be expected -- though surprisingly needy-sounding for a proud, sovereign nation when it comes to the EU being nasty to us and wanting #Brexit Britain to fail (welcome to 'fight club, as regular readers will recall).../9

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson It's also quite rum to threaten the EU over the risk of non-friendly future relations...while implicitly threatening to unilaterally imperil Ireland's place in the single market, which will be viewed as a pretty hostile act in lots of Chancelleries, not just in Brussels./10

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson Anyways, no doubt this is all for show... common sense will prevail and landing zones will be reached.

That means big fixes on both sides. Maybe a re-writing of Article 10 on state aid, maybe even a governance mechanism that has arbitration Swiss-style...and reduced checks/11

@theresa_may @BorisJohnson I'm not saying the EU should go there...though I think they should seriously consider it.

But equally, this Frost speech is a pretty odd way of going about getting them there. ENDS